Rei Masuda (Curator of Photography, The National Museum of Modern Art, Tokyo)

Are Satoru Yoshiokaʼs recent works “Landscape photography?”

Satoru Yoshioka's recent works consist of two distinct series: one with images of facilities of high energy physics research labs/institutions, and the other with images of phenomena occurring inside the brains from the front line of brain research. The former includes images of equipment and machines in the indoor setting, but loosely considered as landscape photography. How, then, about the latter?

As described previously, suppose that landscape and/or landscape photography would vary in correspondence with the changes in our worldview/images, then, Yoshioka's "Sciencescape" is displaying what the photographer has witnessed about changes in the worldview/images at the cutting edge of new sciences, where new knowledge on the world has been produced. Or displaying what he witnessed at the genesis, where the changes take place. As such, one can see his work as a photography of landscape that is changing just right now (or right in front of his eye), or as the generation of a new type of landscape photography.

Although his work represents it indirectly, I'd like to see "Sciencescape" as the very field itself, where the scientific front line has just opened up a new worldview/images.